East of West heads in ‘toe-tapping’ direction

House of Doc’s third CD features new members and less ‘minor key dirges’

House of Doc made a conscious effort to make a CD that would appeal to a younger audience.

How do you honour the memory of a deceased loved one? When Matthew Harder of folk/bluegrass quartet House of Doc lost his grandfather, he decided to pay tribute by writing a song about him.

Matthew describes his grandfather, Henry Koop, as “a blowhard” who loved to stand up at family gatherings to recite Shakespeare before the meal. “When you’re 10 years old, this guy’s wasting your time,” he says while sipping coffee at a café in a Winnipeg mall. “But those are the sorts of things you end up missing the most. His funeral was the first family gathering where his voice wasn’t present.”

The song he wrote is “The Poet,” the last song on House of Doc’s new CD, East of West. Over a gently-strummed acoustic guitar, Matthew sings, “This is not the poet / This is not the bard / This is not the laureate here lying silent.” Later, a choir joins in singing “Amazing Grace.” Mixing the classic hymn with popular song is clichéd, but in this instance it works to maximum effect. “The Poet” is a touching tribute that encompasses both the sadness that comes with losing a loved one and the comfort that comes with knowing he is with the Lord.

The band, which includes Matthew’s wife Rebecca, her brother Dan Wiebe and their friend Jesse Krause, released East of West at the beginning of February. It’s the follow-up to 2005’s Prairiegrass, and the group’s first CD without Rebecca and Dan’s brother, David Wiebe. David’s bass vocals had been an important part of the group since it began singing on Sunday mornings and at fundraising events at Winnipeg’s Charleswood Mennonite Church, where the Wiebe family grew up.

David and his wife Andrea left the band because they didn’t enjoy touring, according to Rebecca. “They weren’t getting the thrill on stage that I get that makes all of the hotels and airplanes and car trips worth it,” she says. Jesse was asked to replace David, and he began touring with the band, followed by writing and recording East of West.

The CD was recorded in Bath, Ont., in a studio owned by famed Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip. Matthew says House of Doc made a conscious effort to make a CD that would appeal to a younger audience. “There’s a lot of death and dying and minor key dirges,” Matthew says of Prairiegrass. “There’s a little more toe-tapping involved on East of West.”

Like Prairiegrass and Sacred Blue, the band’s 2002 debut, harmonization and proficient musicianship take centre stage on the new CD, with all four band members singing and playing multiple instruments. And like those first two discs, East of West draws from traditional styles of music such as old time bluegrass and folk for songs like “Milk and Cookies” and “Heav’n Bound Train.” “Rain Before the Fall” and “Summerstone,” however, are more pop-infused. That was Dan’s influence, Matthew says, coupled with the fact that the band had more time to experiment with different instruments and sounds while recording the CD.

Regardless of any stylistic changes, the songs are still steeped in the band’s Mennonite heritage, exploring themes of faith and family life.

Now that East of West is in stores, the band is looking forward to touring. As for future goals, Rebecca says, “We would like each year to be successful enough for us to be able to do music the next year. If we can do that, I think each of us would die with a smile on our face.”